The Clock Tower is one of the older features of Hogwarts Castle. There lies the mechanism that run the towers clock. There is an old courtyard at its base, and at the top is the clear glass dial of the clock. There is space between the clocks movement and the dial for a person to either work on the clock or to stand and look out over the courtyard. There are five bells in the clock tower. The Clock Tower chimes every half hour and strikes a small bell at the beginning and conclusion of class sessions. What powers the clocks mechanism is currently unknown.

Contents

Description

The gears that run the Clock Tower.

The Tower doesn't begin at the Ground Floor level. Because it's placed on top of a hill, the Tower begins at the Third Floor level. When you enter the Tower, there's a large Hall with flights of wooden stairs at the right and left side and the pendulum of the Clock Tower can be seen as well. The first landing is at the Fourth Floor level. It's at this landing that are the clock's movement and transparent dial. A long corridor with an entrance to the Hospital wing is at this landing. This same corridor connects the Tower to the remaining castle. If you go up another flight of wooden stairs, you will get to another landing, this time at the Fifth Floor level. It's in this landing that are the clock's bells; four massive gold and copper bells and the beginning of the pendulum. There is another corridor at this landing; like the other, it links the Tower to the main castle.

History

1993-1994 School Year

Battle of Hogwarts

The Clock Tower's destruction.

During the Battle of Hogwarts, the Clock Tower was heavily damaged, especially on the front side, by Death Eaters: much of the clock face was shattered, the clock mechanism was most likely damaged and one of its bells somehow ended up at the Entrance Courtyard. However, the bell could have also come from the Bell Towers, also Voldemort and Harry crashed into the ruined tower during their final battle. It is presumed that the tower was reconstructed and the clock mechanism fully restored to working order sometime after the battle concluded.

Behind the scenes

The Clock Tower first appeared in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and is never mentioned in the books. This may be intended to highlight the theme of Time, which plays a central role in the film, and also to foreshadow Harry and Hermione's use of Hermione's Time-Turner at the film's climax to travel back in time in order to rescue Sirius Black and Buckbeak. However, at the beginning of the first book, there is a picture of Hogwarts depicting a tower with a clock.

In the books it is said that there are bells to signal the beginning and end of classes, so probably there was a Clock Tower at Hogwarts in the books.

The design of the clock appears to be based on the Old Town Clock (also called the "Orloj" - pronounced "OR-LOY") in Prague, Czech Republic. The Orloj tells not only the time, but shows the month, the sign of the Zodiac, and shows the relative positions of the moon and sun.